


Colossal Intimacies

by QuickYoke



Series: and pride, insurmountable [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 13:16:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9326483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickYoke/pseuds/QuickYoke
Summary: Blue Diamond encounters palanquin troubles on her way to Pink Diamond's Court.





	

 

_“Four of the roses were on fire._

_They stood up straight and pure on the stalk, gripping the dark like prophets_

_and howling colossal intimacies_

_from the back of their fused throats.”_

_-Anne Carson, the Autobiography of Red_

* * *

* * *

Though she could not herself feel it, Blue could see the heat. Swaddled in layers of heavy dark robes, a figure both hooded and towering, she studied the drooping organic flora, the slow spiral of small many-legged creatures around bright stalks and petals. Far off in the distance the land shimmered with heat, blending the smudged horizon in colour. Blue had visited many colonies, planets and moons alike spanning the galaxy, but she couldn’t remember one being so bright, so glowing, so vivid.

Behind her the retinues of two Diamonds spread in a long line, gems arrayed by rarity – Sapphires and Emeralds and Topazes, Agates bearing banners that gleamed like shields, Quartzes thirty ranks four abreast on a forward tack – all of them interrupted by an unprecedented breakdown. The procession had come to a halt when Blue’s palanquin suffered a critical malfunction. “Overheating,” one of Yellow’s Peridots claimed. It kept the legs from fully retracting, and if a Diamond could not move, gem society on a whole was held in a similar stasis.

Of course this had to happen when invited on their first visit to Pink Diamond’s new colony. A bad omen, Blue thought quietly to herself as the Peridot circled and prodded her palanquin for further damage. How unfortunate that a planet as startlingly beautiful as this had to be so ill-fated. 

To the side, Yellow’s palanquin had stopped as well, and she had emerged from her vehicle, scowling. Now she stood with crossed arms, glaring down at the Peridot ordered to assess the problem at hand. On and on the little Peridot droned, and while Blue was content enough to stew in a mire of silence, frustration, and foreboding, Yellow cut tersely through the Peridot’s ramblings. “Can it be fixed or not?”

Immediately the Peridot snapped to attention and answered in a brisk tone, “In short: Yes. But not here. It will require parts back on the ship.”

Yellow made a disgusted noise at the back of her throat. The Peridot cowered somewhat at her Diamond’s displeasure, not understanding that Yellow’s ire was aimed not at her but at the inconvenience itself. “We don’t have that kind of time.” Yellow growled, pacing around Blue’s palanquin as though she could command the vehicle to move through the sheer force of her stare. After completing a circle, she added with a surly mutter, “Why we didn’t just meet at the base is beyond me.”

Blue turned her head to scrutinise the lengthy path ahead. Walking was out of the question. It wouldn’t do to have a fellow Diamond approach Court on foot. While White Diamond had always been the stickler of the four for due process, an unseemly breach of procedure was not something Blue herself would lightly abide. “I’m sure Pink has good reason to bring us to the surface,” Blue tried to make her voice as smooth as possible in order to circumvent Yellow’s rapid-paced anger as well as her own slowly simmering beneath the surface. “She sounded so excited when she invited us here, after all.”

To that Yellow could say nothing apart from a wordless _harrumph_ of concession. Then with a beleaguered sigh Yellow clapped her hands. “Very well. Do what you must, Peridot.”

“My Diamond.” Peridot crossed her arms in a perfunctory salute before barking orders at a nearby Ruby to begin preparations on fixing the palanquin. Already at the sign of motion at the fore of the parade, those in the rear brightened at the prospect of motion once more. A handful of Rubies trooped in tandem back in the direction of the two ships that had landed some distance away, and over the hills Blue could spy the curve of titanic fingers rising into the sky.

Meanwhile Blue folded her hands together so that they were clasped in the broad sleeves of her robes. “I suppose we wait, then.”

“Nonsense. You’ll ride with me of course.” Yellow gestured to her own palanquin a few strides away.

Blue’s eyebrows rose and from beneath the deep cowl she shot Yellow an incredulous look that the others could not see.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Yellow snapped without glancing at her, already walking to the palanquin in question and shooing her Pearl away with a curt gesture. “It’s the only acceptable solution.”

She was right. She was so often right. Blue both adored and resented her for that. Regardless she told her own Pearl to relay instructions to her retinue on how they would be proceeding, then followed after Yellow.

Stooping, Blue swept back her hood and ducked into the vehicle. As a personal mode of transportation, a palanquin was perfectly suited to its role, but with both of them there the space was cramped. Briefly Blue considered shifting her form down in order to make more room, before she quickly abandoned the idea. To do so on such a public occasion would be an insult to her station and rarity, and that she would not allow. Looking around, Blue found that already Yellow was settled in the only available seat – a high-backed, armless, throne-like curule – looking expectantly at Blue.

“Please tell me you’re joking.” Blue’s voice was flat, unimpressed with the entire situation, as behind her the entrance to the palanquin slid silently shut, leaving them alone in this small enclosed space.

“How often have you ever known me to joke?” Yellow asked with her usual air of self-possession, leaning an elbow along one of the many-patterned grooves carved into the narrow walls.

It was a rhetorical question. Still Blue replied in a dry tone, “Once in a dying star, perhaps.”

A grunt was the equivalent of Yellow’s laugh. Her expression of practiced bored poise was swiftly exchanged for one of surprise when Blue sat in her lap without another word. Blue could feel as well as see Yellow stiffen, her back straightening, her legs going tense. Withholding a mischievous grin, Blue said, “You weren’t expecting me to stand the whole way, were you?”

“Of course not.” Yellow’s unyielding tone was ruined by a heady swallow. Carefully not meeting Blue’s eye, she tapped at a panel on the wall which lit up at her touch, and the palanquin leapt into fluid motion. Behind them Blue could hear the march of many feet in unison, trampling the native flora on their way to Pink Diamond’s Court and leaving in their wake a broad swathe of crushed greenery, like a comet dragging its icy tail through the heavens.  

Parting a curtain with her fingers – the fabric, she noted, was far less delicate than the gossamer drapery of her own palanquin-- Blue peered out at the landscape. “It’s quite vibrant, isn’t it?”

“I honestly haven’t given it any thought.” Yellow answered, as blunt-edged as ever. As if to prove her point, she tapped another panel along the wall, bringing up a list of reports that seemed to stretch on for a galactic lightyear. With a flick of her fingertip she scanned through them, eyes skimming the registry until one caught her attention, at which she enlarged the file and started to read.

“Look.” Blue peeled back the curtain more for Yellow to see, half expecting her to merely flick her gaze at the passing scenery with a dismissive slant of her cheek.

Instead, squinting, Yellow angled her torso forward to better catch a glimpse of the new colony from the ground -- the ice-capped mountains in the distance and the fields of varicoloured wildflowers sprawling to the purpling hills. As she did so, Yellow pressed a palm delicately to Blue’s waist so that she did not slide to the palanquin’s floor and remarked, “Let’s hope it’s as bountiful as the reports claim.”

When she sat back she did not remove her hand, though as expected she did return to her readings. Blue let the curtain fall back into place and turned so that she was perched sideways on Yellow’s knees. “Do you not trust the Kindergarteners’ report?”

“The last two colonies were utter disappointments,” Yellow reminded her. To emphasise this she even pulled up the files in question and rotated the panel so that Blue could see for herself.

“They also were nothing like this planet,” Blue pointed out the flaws individually. “A barren moon – more suited for a base than for growing Quartz – and a gas giant with a surface too dense for anything less than Emeralds. This planet holds far more promise. There’s a richness to the air, to the fells and vales– can’t you almost feel it?”

Blue turned the panel around and flicked it back into its designated place in the wall. Yellow frowned at the place it had once been, the sudden absence of light muting the sharpness of her chin. Idly Blue reached up with one hand to run her fingers through Yellow’s hair. They so rarely were able to speak freely like this, alone. Even surrounded by their combined retinues, this was as close to solitude as they could find for themselves.

Yellow’s peaked hair stuck up in multiple directions, unruly as a mountain ridge, but in spite of this she did not stop Blue from continuing to comb it back at odd angles. Instead her golden eyes searched Blue’s face, some of the tightness in her frame beginning to loosen as short nails ran along her scalp. “I suppose. Though beauty and poetry were always your dominion. Not mine.”

Smiling softly, Blue teased, “I’ve known you to indulge in a spot of poetry here and there.”

“Only at your recommendation,” Yellow’s thumb caressed a recurring path at the dark cloth over Blue’s waist.

“Oh?” Blue flattened Yellow’s hair so that it fell across her brow, and chided with mock sternness. “I don’t recall recommending _Fusion by Moonlight.”_

In fact, White Diamond had been furious at the scandalous epyllion, and Blue had been forced to ban the work and shatter one of her favourite poets for publishing such vile slander. As far as she was aware there were only two extant copies, one in her own private collection and one she had found in Yellow’s.

An amber flush rose to Yellow’s cheeks. She turned her head aside and avoided Blue’s gaze. “That was meant as a gift for you initially, but then I saw that you already possessed a copy.”

With a light laugh, Blue trilled her fingers along Yellow’s neck to her shoulder. “For such a canny general, you are a terrible liar.”

“Only you could ever say that.” Yellow squeezed her hand at the small of Blue’s back. “Only you could ever see through me so easily.”

She must have been suffering the pangs of habitual loneliness keenly to be speaking in such a way. Normally with Yellow it was all short bracing sentences, punctuated with some emphatic motion or another – her clenched fists, her ground-trembling footfalls, her sharp palms slicing the air at every odd syllable. In the past Blue had to coax lengthy speech from her, hour after hour, until at last they exchanged a stream of constant murmurings only to be inevitably interrupted by a Pearl announcing some matter that required their attention. At once all of that hard-won languid leisure would fizzle out – quick as a bolt – and they would have to feed off the memory of those rare moments until they could someday steal away for another.

Often they required careful planning, those moments. Important diplomatic and military engagements trimmed short, brushed off as nothing but superior efficiency, in order to pry loose a moment or two of spare time here and there from their otherwise incessant schedules. A harvesting fiasco some three thousand odd years ago had been especially fruitful, allowing them to spend an unparalleled four days in each other’s company before they had been dragged back to reality once more.

A spark of sneaking suspicion crept up, and Blue narrowed her eyes down at Yellow. “I’m beginning to think you might have devised my palanquin disaster all along.” Yellow’s inscrutable silence was answer enough. Running her free hand from the dip of Yellow’s clavicle to her chest, Blue traced the very edges of the gem there, saying softly, “How long as it been? A few centuries?”

“I’m not sure exactly,” Yellow lied. Blue could read the truth on her face, clear as glass. Yellow was never the type to forget something like this; she would know to the day when they last had this kind of opportunity. Perhaps she even had it recorded in her personal log – Blue wouldn’t put it past her. When Blue grazed a fingertip directly over her gem, Yellow hissed, “We can’t. We would break the palanquin.”

“Only if we fused,” Blue breathed, the realisation that they were well and truly alone for a few stolen instants emboldening her. To waste this would be a shame she would regret for a number of lifetimes. Twisting upon her perch, she leaned forward until her face hovered just over Yellow’s, noses aligned tip to bridge. “We don’t have to do that now. We can save it for another time.”

Yellow’s eyes were heavy-lidded, lined in careful shades of black and crimson, her sharp brows canted up. It was an expression Blue had grown to know intimately. Rather than take action however, she said slowly, “This wasn’t what I had in mind. I hope you know that.”

“And what did you have in mind?” Blue tilted her head, draping her arms over Yellow’s shoulders.

For a second Yellow cast about for what to say. She was a gem dedicated to feats of conquest and triumph. While eloquent when necessary and – usually – when rehearsed, words had never been her strong suit. Too often she came off as brusque and uncaring, cool and distant as an ice-encrusted moon. A façade, Blue knew, an impenetrable armour that only the most patient and dedicated could peel back to reveal what lay beneath. As ever Blue waited for her to give form to her thoughts. Finally, Yellow admitted, “To spend a moment with you, uninterrupted.”

Humming a wordless understanding note, Blue began to pull away. “I’m happy with that.” And she was. An uninterrupted moment with Yellow was everything she could ever ask for, but before she could right herself, Yellow’s hands both came to Blue’s waist and held her fast.

With a quizzical scowl, Blue said, “Indecision doesn’t become you, Yellow.”

A certain avidity kindled Yellow’s gaze to a rich molten colour. “And yet severity suits you.”

The way Yellow’s hands settled on her hips made Blue freeze in place. Even through layers of thick wine-dark cloth, her touch burned, and this was a heat Blue could have sworn she actually felt, instilling sensation as only another Diamond could. The feeling scratched at the space just beneath her gem, heady as a solar flare and just as broad-reaching.

“We still have time.” Blue knew that was most likely untrue, but she did not check to make sure. A simple peek through the curtains would have given them an estimation of how far they had travelled, and she knew instinctively that they would be slowed further by the presence of their retinues. Better to pretend, she thought, pretend that they had enough time to fill the space between solar systems rather than this. “We’ll have to be quick.”

Already Yellow was hurriedly gathering up the long hems of Blue’s dress to slip her hands beneath and slide her palms up along smooth thighs. “That’s fine,” she insisted, her breathing quickening, her pupils sharp and wide. “That’s just fine.”

It wasn’t fine. Blue wanted hours, languorous unrelenting hours, to dwell upon this – the jutting slope of Yellow’s breastbone under her gem, the hard lines of her ribcage, the sturdy joints of her ankles. To grip the light and crawl beneath her skin. To disappear, to burn away the self and become something new, something dazzling, something colossal. She did not want to rush. She could only remember one occasion where they had been able to take their time, an age ago when the colonies were not so vast and sprawling. Now their empire scattered among the stars, and they had time only for a frenetic rut between duties.

Pushing Yellow’s hands aside, Blue swung one of her legs over so that she straddled Yellow in her chair. Hems shucked above the knee, Blue nearly phased her clothing away entirely, only to stop herself. They could arrive at Court at any moment. Their Pearls could intrude without warning – as they were wont to do. Best to leave on as much as possible lest they be caught in so compromising a position. As she snuck her fingers beneath Yellow’s high waistline, she smiled at the thought.

“What is it?” Yellow asked, mouthing a line across Blue’s exposed neck while her hands glided up her thighs to knead her hips under dark robes.

Unable to smother the grin, Blue shook her head. How could she possibly convey how ridiculous the image was? Two diamonds, gods among gems, exposed by a parted curtain for three whole Courts to see as what they truly were. A pair of passionate hypocrites cutting their teeth upon themselves, desperate for some kind of feeling. A thousand thousand lines of carbon exposed to millennia of heat and pressure and nothing more. No better than their subjects at all. “Nothing.” She whispered, “It’s nothing.”

It seemed Yellow would continue to press for an answer, but a sharp gasp escaped her instead when Blue’s fingers found the juncture of her thighs. She buried her head in Blue’s shoulder and bit down, hard. She was already shaking, every inhalation a tremble past her lips. A stroke of Blue’s fingertips and Yellow’s hips leapt, almost bucking Blue from her perch.

Yellow’s hands tethered Blue in place like a gravitational pull – inexorable. Angling her wrist, Blue cherished the sound Yellow clenched away behind rows of teeth as her fingers dipped down then slipped up to the knuckle into slick heat. The palanquin brimmed with soft gasps and louder stifled noises strangled in the chest and jaw.

When the rocking escalated, Blue pinned Yellow’s hips in place with her own, bringing her free hand up to cup the back of Yellow’s head. She leaned over Yellow and kissed her, firmly, deeply. Incensed by the sudden slowness, Yellow groaned. “Would you just –!”

Before she could finish speaking, Blue swiped with her thumb, and Yellow’s entire body jerked with a stark urgency. “You’re always so impatient,” Blue scolded, her faux severity belied by a desperate longing timbre in her own voice. She kissed her again, and crooked her fingers. Yellow panted out her name, and Blue murmured hastily over and over, “Not yet. Not yet.”

Outside she knew the palanquin would be sweeping over a grassy hill, Pink Diamond’s pyramid-shaped crystalline Court on swift approach. Even so Blue wanted to draw this out as much as possible. She wanted to stretch the moment into a long length of amber-coloured silk so that she could turn it over in her hands and admire it in later years, when the memory of Yellow unravelling beneath her touch was the only thing keeping herself from falling apart under the strain of it all. _Not yet,_ she thought as the thunderous stamp of marching gems closed in behind them and their duties loomed ahead – closer, ever closer. _Not yet._

Too soon – far too soon – Yellow choked back a high note into the hollow of Blue’s throat just above her gem. The gasps of breath ghosting over the sparkling facets made Blue shiver, while beneath her Yellow melted back against the high seat. Reluctant, Blue removed her hand, reaching over to surreptitiously wipe it clean on one of the curtains shrouding them from view. Carefully so as not to allow a slit of light to escape and illuminate them from the outside, Blue arranged the curtain back into place and turned to admire Yellow, whose eyes were closed, head tipped back to reveal her surprisingly slender neck.

Blue always thought of her as being solid, broad-shouldered, bluff-cheeked. The slenderness of her throat and wrists when revealed came as a shock to her every time. Were Yellow’s breathing not so uneven – slowly regaining its normal rhythm – Blue might have thought she was merely resting. Her mass of fair hair was a mess, marring her otherwise perfect composure. Blue combed it back into shape with her hands, raking the strands forward and up. As she worked, Yellow murmured something unintelligible and appreciative. Even after it had taken proper form once more, Blue continued to scratch the nape of Yellow’s neck just to hear those contented sounds.

“I love you.” Blue brushed her lips against Yellow’s forehead, where so many furrows usually took root but which now was smooth as polished slate. Then, sitting back on her knees, Blue gave the tip of Yellow’s nose an admonishing tap. “But next time alert me to your schemes.

Yellow’s answering huff of wry laughter was cut short. The palanquin slowed. The march of footsteps faded. A glassy horn trumpeted their arrival at Pink Diamond’s Court. Blue could feel the coolness of the massive pyramid’s shadow towering over them.

Yellow blinked, shuffling forward so that she sat more firmly upright. “We’re here.” It was not a question, though the last syllable lilted as though it were – an incredulous and somewhat irritable pitch. Her voice lowered to a churlish mumble and she parted the curtains with her fingers to glower at the brilliant landscape as though it had personally wronged her. “I didn’t have time to return the favour.”

As Yellow glared through a gap in the curtains at the surrounding countryside, Blue rose to her feet. She brushed her long hems into place so that they dragged behind her ankles. She swept the deep cowl over her head, casting her face in liquid dark shadows. “Next time,” Blue promised, her expression at once warm and resigned.

It would not be that long, she tried consoling herself. The years would flee in a blur, and time would grow slippery and elastic. An epoch would come roaring across the stars at her only to tumble headlong through the black emptiness of space, and she would watch it go. She would forget to wave as it passed her by. She would look ahead to where already the faint sounds of another bloomed upon an outlying nebula like a twin-starred sunset.

Yellow looked up at her and Blue could see the same thought there, the same ageless certainty. Yellow smiled, as soft an expression Blue had ever seen carried on the hard planes of her face, and her gaze enkindled and engoldened itself. “Next time.”

She stood and together they stooped before the low-slung entrance of the palanquin. The doors skimmed soundlessly open and Blue was about to duck outside, when she felt a hand grab hold of her wrist and pull her boldly back. The curtains fluttered around them and Yellow kissed her. Most times she kissed with a fiery bruising determination, as though the act itself were a manner of subjugation, but now her mouth had softened. Sweetly she kissed the corner of Blue’s mouth, and her hand slipped down to briefly press Blue’s fingers. Then, as though nothing had happened at all, Yellow parted the curtain with a stern sweep of her arm, dismounting the palanquin and stepping into the light.

Their Pearls and a pair of Quartzes bedecked in their pageantry garb flanked the palanquin’s entrance when they exited the vehicle. Yellow’s spine was straight and sturdy as a pillar. She peered down her nose at the lesser gems all lined up for ceremonial inspection, her eyes picking out the smallest details – the fine mist of clay encrusting an Onyx’s boots here, a pale-throated flower tucked furtively behind an Agate’s belt as a souvenir there. Blue on the other hand surveyed the palatial pyramid’s walls carved with stylised images of Homeworld and Pink Diamond. At its base vines flowered thorny and wild as though the land itself were rising up in rebellious outrage at this alien intrusion.

A Peridot – different from the one before – stepped forward with a salute and addressed the both of them. “Your Radiances,” she snapped her arms back to her side at smart attention. “The palanquin has been fixed back on the ship and will be here, ready for whenever you choose to depart.”

“Excellent. I will put a good word in with your manager.” Yellow ignored the Peridot’s proud glow and hopeful stammering of thanks, waving her away with a brusque, “Give the details to my Pearl. I will see that it is done.”

As the Peridot engaged Yellow’s Pearl in excited conversation, Blue turned to her own, bending down to better speak with her without the others overhearing.

“Pearl,” Blue began, and immediately her Pearl bowed her head in deference, waiting for whatever question or task her Diamond desired of her. “What is the name of this place?”

Yellow would have known. She should have asked her back in the palanquin, but at the time she’d had far more burning matters in mind. High above this world’s sun was a sweltering ball of heat bathing the land in a harsh light, yet despite its intensity the rays never touched her. Still Blue felt the memory of their recent encounter searing the ends of her fingertips, and she could almost trick herself into believing it was a foreign external sensation.

Pearl’s voice was soft and near inaudible, a whisper of faint silk for only her ears. “I believe it is called: Earth.”


End file.
